According to Lisa Miller, assistant prosecutor in the case filed in Brooklyn, New York, Gautam Adani and his co-defendants planned to "win and finance enormous state energy contracts through corruption and fraud, at the expense of American investors."
Adani's company Green Energy and another company's project involved installing 12 gigawatt solar energy on contract from the Indian government. This is enough to supply electricity to many millions of Indians. For investors in the USA, who invested large sums of money, the project was presented as lucrative and something extra.
Bribes Concealed
But an important part was concealed from the investors – the plan to secure multi-billion-dollar contracts with the Indian government.
According to the indictment, bribes of up to 265 million dollars were paid, or were to be paid. This corresponds to approximately 3 billion kronor. The money was to be used to bribe government officials in India.
In a separate civil lawsuit, Adani and two others are accused of violating fraud regulations regarding securities.
Built on Coal
Gautam Adani is a powerful person in India whose wealth was built on coal deals in the 1990s. The Adani Group is active in, among other things, the defense industry, construction, and food industry. In recent years, renewable energy has become a major business area, with a slogan that can roughly be translated to "Growth with goodness".
